My Fleeces are Back from the Mill!! Llama Rovings Now Available!

Several months ago I sent three fleeces to the mill to be processed into roving. I sent a first shearing fleece from our gorgeous silver/gray male, Tempis Fugit. This fleece has been sitting in my studio for a few years, waiting for me to decide what to do with it. It was extremely clean, ultra-soft and an incredible silver/gray color.

Here is a photo of Tempis Fugit - he has earned enough Grand Champion awards at halter to earn his ALSA Halter Champion award!

 

And here is a photo of his first shearing rovings

I also sent in Tempis Fugit's second shearing fleece. It processed into a similar roving that is slightly darker and only slightly less fine than the first shearing.

These rovings are available for sale. I will probably hold back at least one bump of the first shearing for my personal spinning stash. The rest is offered at $4.50/oz for the first shearing fiber and $4.00/oz for the second shearing fiber.

The first shearing fiber bumps are as follows:

8.3 oz = $37.35

10 oz = $45.00
10.6 oz = $47.70

I have an 11.6 oz bump in stock but I think that is the one I will hold back for my own stash.

The second shearing fiber bumps are as follows: (all prices are plus shipping/handling)

8.2 oz = $32.80

10.8 oz = $43.20
12.1 oz = $48.40

I had some gorgeous rich dark chocolate brown rovings available from a first shearing of Primoris Filius (First Son in latin - he is Tempis Fugit's first son) but that fiber sold quite quickly. I'm going to share a photo of the llama and the fiber though, because it is so gorgeous!

Here is Primoris Filius aka Fil after shearing

And the bumps of his first shearing roving

We're in Another Etsy Treasury!

Wow - one of my listings is in yet another Treasury on Etsy! This one is curated by Paige at Lenox Knits (plenox on Etsy) and is called "Lenox Knit's Blog Buddies Southwest Theme" and contains gorgeous items with a Southwest theme! These are some great items by some gifted artists and blogging buddies. Please take a look!

My item is the Jewels of the Southwest custom fiber blend batts.

And speaking of Etsy Treasuries, the Somewhere Over the Rainbow Treasury that I blogged about on Sunday May 23rd made it to the FRONT PAGE of Etsy on Monday morning May 24th! And I MISSED IT! I got up early and got my chores done so I could meet somebody in Divide to pick up the third kitten out of the litter that was found at the trailer park. She was so weak and frail that I spent most of the day working to get her to eat and drink and warmed up so she didn't die. I didn't realize until Monday night when I looked at my store stats on craftopolis.com and saw that the store had 135 unique visitors and 510 page views that day that something was up. I went to another site where they tell you if your store has been featured on the front page of Etsy and sure enough - it had been on the front page that morning at 8 AM. Unfortunately I didn't get a screen shot of it. Does anyone know how you can get a screen shot?

I was busy this weekend!

Yesterday DH went to the Caucus so I had the house to myself for a few hours. I haven't carded up very many fiber batts over the past few weeks because of the foster kittens. I decided it was time to go through my stash and make up the batts I've been dreaming of for weeks now.

I did three batts yesterday and two batts on Friday.

Desert Sunset

Spring Meadow

Misty

Frozen Waterfall

Painted Desert

It felt SO good to get back to creating fiber batts again! I found some fibers that I forgot I had in my stash that I'm going to use this coming week to make more batts. Stay tuned for more fibery goodness!

What I Made This Week

I've been busy again! I have a Fiber of the Month Club - you can order rovings or batts or both. Each month I create a brand new colorway for my Club members and only they can purchase this colorway. January's colorway is Enchanted - Navy Blue, Mallard Green, Gold and Purple.

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Sometimes I coordinate the batt to the roving for members who order both. This month it worked out that I had fibers in my blending stash that coordinated beautifully with the roving I dyed.

I also dyed up a variegated Lincoln lamb fleece in Mermaid colors - Turquoise, Navy, Mallard and Purple. I love how the different colors of the fleece (cream, silver, gray) gave these fibers such lovely hues and shades when they were dyed.

 

And, I dyed up some kid and yearling mohair locks to be used as doll hair or for spinning. The locks that can be used for doll hair take forever to pick out of the fleece. I wash the fleece, dye it, let it dry on the drying rack and then hand select each individual lock from the fleece and lay them all in the same direction. It may take me almost an hour to hand select a couple of ounces of fiber this way. Whatever is left after I've picked out the nicest locks for doll hair I hand pick and sell for spinning, felting or other fiber art. I dyed up some silver locks and some mahogany locks. These fibers are incredibly soft and have fabulous luster (shine) to them.

 

And finally I carded up several new custom fiber blend batts for spinning, felting or fiber art. Here's Riot.

And Serenity.

So, that is why I haven't posted anything since Wordless Wednesday. When The Creative Muse finally comes around, I have to take advantage of it and do whatever The Muse moves me to create.

I Think I Nailed It!

For the November Roving of the Month Club colorway I wanted something for the holidays but not the traditional red/green/white. I had silver and blue in mind. I found this photo online and tried to recreate it on rovings.

I think I nailed it...what do you think?

My Final Choice for the Banner

After playing with several different suggestions and ideas that my wonderful visitors offered I have decided to go with the third collage and added the grid lines in tan and changed the text to white to make it easier to read. Although I do find the text more difficult to read on the orange background than the blue, we decided to use this collage because those two backgrounds together offer a lot more space for text than the blue background by itself. The collage with the text on just the blue background looks too cluttered. So, here is my final choice for the collage to be used for our vinyl banner.

By the way, the text looks really small in these photos but when you print it out on a 2'x3' banner it is big enough to read easily. I'll try to remember to post the llama collage I designed for a 2'x1.5" banner. I thought the lettering was way too small but couldn't get it any bigger and when the banner arrived I was thrilled at how fabulous it turned out!

U-Printing Poster Photo

Remember the giveaway that Broken Teepee was having in July for the 18"x24" poster from U-Printing? I won that giveaway and above is the photo I chose to have made into the poster. I think it shows what we love most about llamas and the llama lifestyle. Softness, elegance, grace and tenderness. And that description also applies to the fibers I sell as a fiber artist. Let me know what you think about it.

UPDATE: The original photo that I posted this morning was not good enough quality or high enough resolution to make a good poster - it was really grainy and I couldn't find the original so I chose this one of Chocolate Chip and his momma, Miss Congeniality, taken about an hour after he was born. I think I like this one just as much as the other one. How about you?

Mesquite's Fleece in a Treasury!

Shearing a Llama

After yesterday's post about shearing the llamas, there were several questions regarding the shearing process, weight of fleeces, etc., which I will answer in today's post.

It usually takes us about two hours to shear a llama. We first tie the llama up (to our propane tank) and use a high powered blower to open the fleece up and to blow as much debris and vegetable matter (VM) such as hay, grass, sticks and dust/dirt out of the fiber as we can. We sometimes use mink oil diluted in water and spray that into the air flow as we blow; this helps to make the fiber slicker and helps the VM to release and blow out of the fiber better. We usually wear some sort of eye protection during this process because those sticks become little missiles as they're blown out of the fleece. Seriously folks, this blower has two motors on it and can blow a toy poodle across a linoleum floor (don't ask me how I know this).

If the fibers are heavily matted or there is a lot of debris in the outside of the fleece I will use a slicker brush or curry comb to break the tips open, helping to release more of the VM and debris out of the fiber. This also helps to remove any dried tips off the fleece. Sometimes we have to put the llamas into the grooming chute and tie them so they will stand still for shearing (and even then we have some that hate the process and will jump up over and over in an attempt to get out of the chute.) Other llamas will stand quietly outside the chute and allow me to shear them without the use of any restraints other than hubby holding their lead rope (these are my favorite llamas!)

There are various tools that can be used to cut and remove the fiber from the animal. Sheep shears, electric clippers or scissors can be used. I prefer to use scissors when I shear. They are inexpensive, I buy the ergonomically correct type so hand fatigue is kept at a minimum and they generally allow for a better fleece due to fewer second cuts. I can also leave the fiber on the animal a bit longer so their coat grows out enough to keep them warm in our cold and snowy Colorado winters. Electric clippers are expensive, the blades need frequent sharpening, they are heavy and get hot and you need to have an electrical plug-in available and they are noisy and tend to scare the llamas. Sheep shears are similar to using scissors but my hands aren't big enough to even hold a pair of sheep shears, so scissors is my cutting tool of choice!

Hubby holds the lead rope or stands at the head of the llama if they're in the grooming chute and he offers them handfuls of grain and alfalfa pellets if they stand quietly and are good. I start shearing by cutting straight down the topline (back) of the llama starting at their withers at the base of their neck and going to a point where their back legs connect to their body. I start on the right side of the llama and clip front to back, holding the scissors flat against the body so that I don't accidently cut the llama. After I finish the right side, I move to the left side and repeat the process. We have a mesh round pop-up "can" that we put a large plastic bag into and the fleece goes into this as I shear. After I have sheared the "barrel" section of the llama (the middle section) I shear the belly wool, which is usually coarser and dirtier than the prime barrel fiber. This either gets discarded (the birds love to use llama wool for lining their nests!) or if it is fairly clean I bag it and sell it to be used as doll hair. Some people shear their llama completely. I seldom do because I don't want the llama to get too cold during the winter and I don't like the way they look when they're sheared like that. They seem to be mortified, too, when you shear them "bare nekked"!

The llamas look so different after shearing that we frequently have to put them into a catch pen in the pasture until the other animals have had a chance to sniff them and realize that it isn't a new llama that you're putting in with them. This cuts down on fighting and wrestling in the pastures, especially with the boys!



This is a freshly shorn fleece from our Grand Champion llama Midnight Hour (top of post). This prime fleece (after skirting out dirty, coarse and unusable fibers) weighs one pound fourteen ounces (1 lb 14 oz) and has a staple length of 5 inches. Staple length is the length of the fiber from the base where it is cut to the tips.

This fiber can be spun as is straight out of the bag and washed after spinning or it can be washed in soap, dried and carded up into batts (flat sheets) or roving (long rope) and then spun or felted.


Here is a photo of Midnight Hour's fleece from a few years ago that we had carded up into rovings. His fiber is exceptionally soft and loaded with crimp, which gives it "memory" so that when knit with it will retain its shape better.

Llama fiber is hollow so it has excellent heat retention properties similar to down and feathers. It is generally hypoallergenic and does not contain lanolin like sheep's wool does.

Chocolate Chip's prime fleece weighs almost two pounds, which is quite a bit for a little llama but he is almost two years old and this is his first shearing. The first shearing is always the softest and most luxurious fleece the animal will ever produce in their lifetime, making it highly sought after by hand spinners.

Llamas are generally sheared every two years unless they have a fast fiber growth rate, then they can be sheared yearly. Generally as they age their fiber growth rate slows down and we shear every two to three years.

Hopefully this answered the majority of the questions about shearing!

Ramblings

Today I'm celebrating my 50'ish birthday and the first anniversary of my "retirement" from my "real job" to work our ranch and my fiber business full time. I think I'll have a sale in my etsy store to celebrate. May sales in my etsy store were pathetic, the worst I've ever experienced. I don't know if it is the economy or if I am not offering what people want to buy or what. I find it difficult to get inspired and creative if I think it will just sit in a Rubbermaid storage bin waiting for someone to fall in love with it. I just pulled several batts from my store (listings that just expired) and I'm going to sit down today and spin them into yarn. Then if we can get some decent lighting I'll photograph the two batches of fleece I dyed last week and get those listed in my store.



It started out as a beautiful day yesterday morning. We sold two female llamas to a retired couple who live about an hour south of us who have several acres of land and wanted a couple of females to help guard their chickens, etc. Then we photographed one of our young male llamas that I had just sheared last Wednesday evening, and I posted his new photos to our ranch website. We then headed to Colorado Springs to spend the afternoon at my parents' house. My Dad's birthday is tomorrow and we always celebrate our birthdays together. They had a gorgeous cheesecake sampler that we dove into, along with fresh strawberries, and then played cards for a couple of hours before heading back home. The closer we got to home, the harder it was raining. The road was so muddy we almost slid sideways several times. We fed the horses and the llamas in the rain and were muddy, wet and cold when we got done with chores. This morning is more of the same. I'd love one full day of sunshine so things will dry out and I can cheer up!

Sorry for the kind of "downer" post but its just one of those days. I'm posting some photos of my fibers and the llamas, just because I like to see photos in the posts. Have a great day!

Updates

Last week I finally got a chance to dye up some fibers. I had some fabulous 50% Rambouillet Lamb/50% Kid Mohair skinny roving in my stash that I dyed up in the crockpot in Bronzed Burgundy (Golden Yellow and Burgundy and the Bronzed Burgundy created when they combine) and Lemon Lime (Sky Blue and Yellow Sun and the shades of blue/green created when they combine). These rovings were processed right here in Colorado from Colorado raised animals!



Then I decided I needed to try dyeing up some 100% Alpaca roving that I bought from my friend Jen at Hanks in the Hood. She bought the raw alpaca fleeces and had them processed into this beautiful roving. Again, my Bronzed Burgundy colorway on this alpaca. It didn't take the dye as deeply as the skinny rovings but it is very soft and should have a nice fuzzy halo on the finished yarn.



And, last but certainly not least - This is my entry for the May 2009 CJ Kopec Creations Spin-A-Long. Handspun two-ply yarn spun from rovings purchased from CJ Kopec Creations on etsy. 100% Corriedale wool in soft peachy/coral and buttery yellow. Plyed with a gold thread. Corriedale is not ultra soft but this yarn turned out fluffier and softer than I expected. Beautiful color. Coby called the roving Cupie Doll but I renamed the yarn Seashells because it reminds me of a big Conch Shell.

174 yards and 1.7 ounces. This is a fingering weight yarn with 1600 yards per pound. Hand wash cool, lay flat to dry.

21 wpi - 1-3 needle recommended or hook size B, C or D. If I was knitting with it I would use a larger sized needle to create a more open look to show off the colors and the gold sparkle!

I have more of this fiber available and will be spinning more skeins of this yarn up.

Friday Feature

Welcome to a new weekly (or perhaps bi-weekly, depending on my schedule, etc.) addition to my blog! This is Friday Feature where I will feature another artist or blogger. My very first Friday Feature is Inspiration by Karen. I met Karen when she purchased my Critter Creator Kit fibers and she started making these adorable needle felted dogs. Above is a custom Sheltie she created for someone who had lost their beloved dog and wanted a remembrance to cherish (real dog photo right, felted sculpture left, above). Below is another photo of the finished creation (real dog photo top, felted sculpture bottom, below). You, too can send Karen a photo of your pet (dog or cat) and she can create a lifelike sculpture for you!

1. How did you get started needle felting?

A friend told me about Etsy because she knew I made the nice Adirondack ladies coats...so I opened up a shop there, and that night I found the needle felted stuff and I couldn't stop looking at it and wishing I could do it. Finally had to buy a book and teach myself, so I did, then I met you and bought your critter pack which REALLY got me started in the dogs and then from there I went absolutely crazy doing every animal and bird I could find the time to create!

2. How long have you been needle felting?

I have been doing it for about a year and a half

3. Where do you get your ideas and inspiration for your work?

Everywhere and anywhere I see nature and animals, some right in my back yard, others from all of the years of hiking and snow shoeing in the wilderness with my sons, especially Zack - he used to cast all of the animal tracks he could find, so we spent a lot of time in the woods! I am at home in nature, I feel complete when I am outside just looking at the awesome Universe and wildlife that God has given us.

4. How much time does an average piece take to complete?

Average design (seeing as how they are all of my own designs) takes me anywhere from 20 to 35 hours to create!

Here is where you can find more of Karen's beautiful work:

http://inspirationbykaren.etsy.com

http://www.flickr.com/photos/inspirationbykaren

http://inspirationbykaren.blogspot.com


The story on my Needle Felted Dogs was featured in our local newspaper on the Arts page, here is the link if anyone is interested in reading about me:

http://www.poststar.com/articles/2008/06/01/ae/today/13635720.prt~

And the final question - what is your favorite item in your etsy store right now?

I would have to say the Bald Eagle! I loved the way it came out so real, I took it in our local town hall to show the girls and one of the men that works there thought it was a real eagle because I had it on my hand like one would hold a real bird!! It was pretty cool!

In Another Treasury!

One of my handdyed rovings, Aspens & Pines, is in another Treasury today!

Look What BohoKnitterChic Spun!

This yarn was spun by Brittany of BohoKnitterChic using one of my Monet Water Lilies Custom Fiber Blend batts. Spun into a gorgeous skein of coiled art yarn. And, this was her first attempt at spinning a coiled yarn! She named her yarn “Garden Tea Party” because it reminds me of a set of my great grandmother’s china. Thank you Brittany for sharing these photos - what an awesome job you did!